Nora McGunnigle

Awesome post, over at my other blog! Go read all about Boucherie's beer dinner pairings with the Swedish beers.  It was good times. Man, I love those beers. Also, Boucherie. It's a winning situation all around. WINNING!

Avenue Pub management had a great method to help customers order the beers and the bartenders to understand them- they put the list and tasting notes together pairing each beer with a number, so you could just go up and order a Number Nine or Seven, or whatnot. Brilliant! (especially as the day/night went on) Funny story on Friday night- I wanted to order a bitter and a stout, but Eileen heard it as a bitter and a SOUR, so I got the Bedarö Bitter and the Cantillon Mamouche. I laughed and asked her to also pour me a stout. I'd wanted to drink the bitter while letting the Nynäshamns Sotholmen Extra Stout come up to temp, but I ended up drinking the bitter and the Mamouche. Stout was excellent by the time I got to it though. I cannot say enough good things about the Nynäshamns Bötet Barley Wine. It truly was the best barleywine I've ever had. It was a serious revelation. I loved the Nynäshamns Bedarö Bitter and the Oppigårds Amarillo Spring Ale like crazy too. Tom loved, as I...

(Crossposted to the other blog I write for, NOLA Beer Guide .) First things first: BIG UPS to The Avenue Pub- owner Polly Watts and her amazing staff – Stene Isacsson, owner of Akkurat Bar & Restaurant in Stockholm, and Shelton Brothers Distributors for all their hard work to bring this event to not only New Orleans but to Louisiana, the South, the US. Nothing like this anywhere else in the country- this was totally a once in a lifetime opportunity and I am grateful to everyone’s role in making it happen. On Tuesday, the Avenue put on the Oppigårds Golden Ale and I gave that a try- a very pleasant, slightly hoppy, balanced, and drinkable beer. Delicious! I couldn’t make the Wednesday night tasting, but I did go back on Friday night and enjoyed several of the Swedish offerings, both upstairs and downstairs. The Balcony also had Cantillon Mamouche on draft as a special keg for a special weekend. Downstairs had a Jolly Pumpkin Maricaibo Especiale to enjoy. I started with the Nä...

Got this email from the Avenue Pub (recall, I saw a letter in Offbeat a while back alluding to this).  Hooray!  Mark your calendar...for... Narke, Nils Oscar, Nynäshamns Ångbryggeri & Oppigarde Beer event. The Kindness of Strangers Swedish beer event January 21st, 2012 In April of last year I met the owner of a very famous beer bar in Sweden. Stene loves New Orleans and wanted to throw a Mardi Gras party at his bar in Stockholm. Working with Shelton Bros we figured out a way to ship kegs of Abita and NOLA to Sweden. The idea was that they would be filled with Swedish beer and then returned to the Pub. Those kegs are on their way back to us now and we have scheduled the event for Saturday Jan 21st. what I didnt expect was the beers Stene would choose to send us. More than a few have never been in the US before and there is little chance they will return. The Stormskaporter is surely one of the most coveted imperial stouts in the world. It's made in tiny batches and ...

Picked up the latest issue of Offbeat Magazine last night while hanging out on Frenchmen Street and found something of great interest to me in the Letters to the Editor section: STOCKHOLM FESTIVAL First of all, thanks for a great magazine. You have helped me so much in learning about the music and culture of New Orleans. On Friday we start the first ever New Orleans Festival in Sweden at my club in Stockholm [Akkurat Bar & Restaurant]. I have beers coming in from both Abita and NOLA Brewing Company. To my knowledge, it’s the first time these beers have been shipped on draught outside the United States. We will fill the empty barrels with Swedish beer and ship them back to Polly at the Avenue Pub on Saint Charles Avenue, who is doing a wonderful job for the beer culture. Hopefully we can have a continuous exchange program working in the future. We also got loads of food like po-boys and of course crawfish, which are in season in Sweden right now. Yes we eat them here too. —Stene I...